


Paper Legs

by nightberrypearl



Category: NU'EST
Genre: 4+1 because i can't think of 5 scenarios, Crack, Established Relationship, Fluff, Kim Jonghyun-centric, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-01 19:23:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14527446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightberrypearl/pseuds/nightberrypearl
Summary: He couldn’t help it. Really, he couldn’t. Sometimes he would find himself so hard and so fast and there was nothing he could do about it. He never wanted to be like this, but he had no say in the matter. He was pretty sure that falling like this couldn’t be considered normal.Clearly, Jonghyun’s legs hadn’t gotten the memo.Jonghyun's never-ending battle with his paper legs.(Alternatively: 4 times Jonghyun fell and the one time Minhyun was there to catch him)





	Paper Legs

He couldn’t help it. Really, he couldn’t. Sometimes he would find himself falling so hard and so fast and there was nothing that he could do about it. He never wanted to be like this, but he had no say in the matter. He was pretty sure that falling like this couldn’t be considered normal.

Clearly, Jonghyun’s legs hadn’t gotten the memo.

Jonghyun’s legs failed him on a regular basis. Usually it resulted in varying amounts of stumbling and embarrassment. Other times, and perhaps more often than he’d like to admit, it ended with him either flat on his back or with his face firmly planted into the ground.

Needless to say, he had a love-hate relationship with his legs. They frequently failed him with no rhyme or reason that he could comprehend, there was no pattern to when his legs would suddenly decide that their working hours were over.

You would think that as a dancer, Jonghyun would be really well balanced and stable on his feet. It wouldn’t be the most illogical conclusion to draw, but sadly, his legs defied all logic.

Sometimes, Jonghyun wished that reality was like the games that he played; perhaps then, if he was unsatisfied with his own legs, he could just upgrade them or swap them for better ones at the click of a button. At the moment, it felt like he had the most basic of the basic, level zero legs – the kind that came with starter character and only just does what you want. The kind that you just want to upgrade as soon as possible because they always fail you in your moment of need, the kind that gave away who the true newbies were because all of them still had them. Legs were a status symbol, it showed who the true pro gamers were– _Wait, where was he going with this metaphor again?_ … Good functioning legs are important. Yeah, that was what he was getting at.

 

* * *

 

**1.**

Okay perhaps he could forgive his legs just this once. This time, it wasn’t necessarily the fault of his own physiology. To be fair to his legs, trampolines weren’t exactly meant to be danced upon. Certainly not while four other people were also trying to dance on it at the same time. The producer at HeyoTV that had decided that a 2x speed dance of Love Paint on a trampoline was a good idea, he needed to have words with them.

Though there was some glee in seeing the rest of the members falling all over the place, just as he often did on solid ground. _See how it feels kids, see how it feels to have your legs betray you, maybe now you won’t laugh at me anymore._

 

**2.**

He really should have seen this coming. It was inevitable really that his legs would choose to embarrass him on camera.

Though he was grateful that when his legs had decided to malfunction, they did so right when he was above one of the camping chairs that the Night Goblin staff had set out. But still, it was right at a moment when everyone could see.

“Why are you so weak?”

He could hardly tell them that his legs hated him and had a vendetta against him, so he settled for trying to laugh it off.

But then of course it had happened again later – though to a lesser extent. He didn’t fall per se, but he distinctly remembers stumbling around whilst running towards the waterslide that they needed to be first in line for.

In his defence, the water from the shower had made sunscreen go in his eyes and the lack of sleep put him off balance. _Let’s just completely ignore the fact that the same situation could have happened after 12 hours of sleep and without any sunscreen. The viewers don’t need to know that…_

 

**3.**

He could do this right? It was simple really. Just a few seconds of elephant spinning and then a standing long jump. Yeah, he could totally do this.

He could not do this.

Everything had been going fine, he had spun rather well if he did say so himself – nice and stable at a respectable speed – he felt that he had definitely put enough power into his jump that he could go pretty far. All he had to do was be sure to land proper–

Who was he trying to kid, that was never going to happen was it?

Of course not. His legs weren’t able bear his weight and they crumbled the moment they landed back on the ground, and hence landing him flat on his back with the rest of his members laughing at his misfortune.

“It was the spinning! It made me unbalanced…” he’d later argue to his members as they continued to tease him about having paper legs.

Paper legs? No. _Spiteful_ legs. That’s what he had.

What had he even been thinking? His legs were the enemy that could never be trusted. He should have known better.

_At least I did better than Minki._

**4.**

Okay this time he really didn’t have an excuse.

For most people walking down the street couldn’t be considered that much of a dangerous activity. But Jonghyun wasn’t most people.

He had been on his way to the practise room to prepare for NU’EST W’s comeback when it happened. He was just minding his own business; walking along a quiet side street when his legs buckled and folded at his knees.

Lucky for him he’d managed to keep himself from _completely_ face planting, or else _that_ really would have been embarrassing. There was no way he would be able to hide that from everyone else when they saw him at the studio.

Standing up and dusting himself off, he turned to look at the street behind him. It was perfectly even, no bumps or cracks he could have tripped on. His legs just simply gave in. For no reason.

Jonghyun just didn’t get it. Why on earth were his legs like this? Why did they insist on being so problematic? Why couldn’t they just function as intended? Shame he couldn’t return them, sadly legs didn’t have a warranty period, though he had a feeling he would have already past it even if they did.

Fortunately, he hadn’t been wearing ripped jeans so his sweats had slightly cushioned his fall but that didn’t mean that his knees didn’t still hurt.

_If my legs are out to get me, they’re doing it pretty stupidly. Making me fall like that… they’re just hurting themselves. Stupid legs indeed._

 

**+1**

Finally, a year and a half had passed. It was 2019 and any moment now, Minhyun would be back in their dorm and this time it wouldn’t just be for a short visit.

Minhyun was due back any minute now; he had already texted ahead that he would be back soon. The thought of seeing Minhyun again made Jonghyun nervous and excited. Since it was fairly late at night/early in the morning that Minhyun was returning, Jonghyun was the only one awake. (He had insisted on the others going to sleep since he could tell they were all exhausted.)

A minute passed and Jonghyun’s anticipation grew. He couldn’t stop fidgeting, making the entire sofa he was sitting on shake with him.

The click of their front door lock jolted him up from the sofa. Turning around, he watched as the front door opened and the lights from outside spilled into the dark hallway of their dorm as the silhouette of Minhyun’s familiar figure appeared in the doorway.

Seeing Minhyun again made Jonghyun momentarily freeze. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t spoken to each other for the entire year and a half. While they hadn’t had much time to meet up due to their busy schedules, they had still texted each other frequently and watched each other on tv whenever they had the chance.

Perhaps it was the fact that it was just the two of them, back in their dorm together, away from the public eye and now free to do as they wished that made him freeze.

As Minhyun turned around, he switched on the light, suddenly flooding the hallway with light. And for the first time in a long time, Minhyun and Jonghyun stood before each other, just staring, neither or them saying anything.

It didn’t take long before Jonghyun couldn’t hold himself back and he suddenly ran towards Minhyun, with the intent on smothering the taller man in the biggest welcome hug that he could muster.

But naturally, that didn’t go as smoothly as planned.

One moment he was only a step away from Minhyun, just about to wrap his arms around the latter’s skinny frame, and then the next moment, he was tripping on thin air and colliding harshly with the Minhyun’s solid chest.

“ _Umph!_ ” Minhyun made a noise of surprise as he caught Jonghyun and stopped the two of them from toppling over.

_‘well,’_ Jonghyun thought, _‘at least I got that hug…’_

The pair of them stayed in that position for a while, each of them refamiliarizing themselves with each other’s warmth. Before, they had been pretty much attached at the hip, neither could be seen without the other. Minhyun could often be found watching Jonghyun as he played his games or with a book as Jonghyun snuggled against him watching his anime. And in the evenings, the pair of them would be curled up together in one bed, sharing their warmth and drifting off peacefully into a deep slumber.

The fact that now all of this could once more be their routine pleased them both far more than they would admit aloud.

Eventually, Jonghyun pulled back slightly from the hug to look up and he saw Minhyun already gazing down at him with his eyes full of adoration and affection. Jonghyun doubted that his own eyes were any different.

“I know I’m handsome and all but I didn’t think you’d literally fall for me like that Jonghyun-ah.”

Jonghyun resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the cheesy line as he felt Minhyun chuckling with satisfaction.

“Shut up…” he grumbled, tucking his head back into Minhyun’s shoulder.

Suddenly he felt fingers softly stroking through his hair, and he closed his eyes, savouring the feeling of being back in Minhyun’s arms.

“I missed you…”

And truly he did. It was hard not to notice the gaps that he and the other members subconsciously left for a fifth person that wasn’t there. It was hard the first few times they performed their old songs as NU’EST W because he had to try hard to not visibly jolt when the voice he heard singing certain parts was not the one he expected to hear. It was hard to wake up every morning with the other side of his bed stone cold and untouched.

It felt weird to not be nagged at all the time, or to be able to play his games in silence. He had missed the noise that came with Minhyun. He had missed hearing him flitter around the dorm cleaning at the most random of times. He had missed being called “jju-ah”, even if Minhyun didn’t realise that he was calling him that.

“I missed you too.” He felt the words murmured into his hair and he felt himself being pulled into an even tighter hug.

It was a tiny bit uncomfortable to be held so tightly, but that didn’t matter to Jonghyun. He was just glad to be able to do this now. There would be no-one, no rules, to keep him from doing so whenever he wished.

The two of them stayed standing in their hallway, wrapped in each other, for what seemed like hours. Neither of them spoke; neither felt the compulsion to break the silence, both content to just _be_.

For now, they were just fine with the silence, perfectly content with finding solace in each other. Words could wait until later. Catching up could wait. Everything could wait.

All of that could come later. There was no rush, no hurry. They had all the time in the world now.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I know I didn't really go very in-depth with description in each scenario, but that was largely because each one, except the 4th, was taken from actual videos of Jonghyun so you can just watch them if you haven't seem them already. The scenes in this fic are from:
> 
> 1\. Ep 3 of HeyoTV's NU'EST Private Life  
> 2\. Ep 4 of JTBC's Night Goblin  
> 3\. Idol Weekly Interview with NU’EST W [KBS World Idol Show K-rush2 / 2017.10.27] (Youtube)
> 
> And finally, thank you all so much for reading!
> 
> My [twitter](https://twitter.com/nightberrypearl) if you want to talk NU'EST with me.


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